"With all the guys out and all of us coming in, I think at this point we're pretty comfortable. We feel good out there," Bartkowski said.

Patrice Bergeron and Jarret Stoll traded roughing penalties at 6:31 of the third period when they tangled in front of the Kings bench.

Fifty seconds later, the Bruins found themselves killing off a four-on-three courtesy of a phantom hooking call on Johnny Boychuk.

Back to five-on-four, Jeff Carter struck the equalizer for LA at 8:35, but it was quickly erased in 23 seconds by Marchand, who buried a shot in the high slot off a feed from Reilly Smith to put the Bruins back on top 3-2.

"It's nice, but you know it's going to end at some point," he said. "You got to try and stay even-keeled. You don't want to get too high and you don't want to get too low. The main thing right now is to try and continue to work hard."

Willie Mitchell cut into Boston's lead at 4:09 of the second, scoring from the slot.

The Bruins continued their struggles in the faceoff circle, winning only 37 percent.

The difference-maker was the penalty-kill unit, which went 3 for 3 until Carter's strike.

It was an extremely physical game, especially in the closing minutes of the first period.

Playing the puck in the corner, Krug absorbed a high hit from 6-foot-3, 221-pound Jordan Nolan. Milan Lucic got right in Nolan's face and the two heavyweights endured a long, heated bout.

Krug had the last laugh with a power-play strike from the left faceoff circle through a Zdeno Chara screen to put Boston on top 2-0 at 17:51.

The Bruins got on the board at 12:07.

With Boston short-handed, Marchand powered his way through the neutral zone, put the puck on net, then grabbed his own rebound. With nothing but Kings jerseys around him, he danced around Drew Doughty and Anze Kopitar before snapping the puck past Quick.

It was his fourth short-handed goal – a league best.

"It's pretty exciting," Bartkowski said. "To see any player do that – especially him because he's such an agitator – it's got to get under the other team's skin a lot more. But it was pretty special to watch that first goal ... that might be the best goal I've seen in person."